US court case leads to confusion over spam

US court case leads to confusion over spam

19th Sep 10:17

British anti-spam organisation Spamhaus is ignoring a US court ruling demanding it pay damages for blacklisting a US-based email marketing firm because, it says, the court does not have authority over UK-based firms.

The lawsuit was brought in Illinois by a local firm called e360 Insight, which alleged that it had been wrongfully placed on Spamhaus's blacklist of companies sending spam.

Last Wednesday, the judge ordered Spamhaus to pay e360 Insight $11.7m (£6.2m) in compensation and $2,000 in legal costs and to remove it from its blacklist.

However, Spamhaus has responded that the US court does not have jurisdiction over it because the organisation is based in the UK and for this reason it chose not to mount a defence in the case.

Steve Linford, chief executive of Spamhaus, said e360 sends spam that is illegal in the UK and Spamhaus will continue to list the company on its black list. According to Spamhaus, its list is used by many major ISPs, companies and governments.